TV REVIEW Medium 4.11 "Lady Killer"

Original US air date: 07/04/2008

In Dreams: A sexy older woman kills young men in a number of interesting ways.

The One Where: A series of murders seem to link into chapters of a self-help book advising older women how to charm toy boys. Is the author the murderer?

Verdict: Clearly this episode was designed as a bit of light relief after all the fraught drama of the previous four weeks, and on many levels it’s an entertaining piece of hokum. Rosanna Arquette is great as the feisty femme fatale literally preying on young men in Allison’s dreams (if only figuratively preying on them in the “real” world). There’s also an engrossing little B-plot in which Allison exposes an attempt by Van Dyke to scupper Devalos’s election campaign – it’s always good to see Van Dyke getting stiffed, and the way Devalos achieves that stiffing is a delicious two-fingered salute. The main downfall of the episode is its denouement, though, which almost deserves to be covered in a “Bloopers” subheading: the killer turns out to be the author’s male publisher. Er, hang on. If DNA evidence didn’t uncover that the murderer was male, surely even preliminary investigations would have revealed his victims were all of a gay persuasion?

Time Checks: Scanlon: “No, Allison, it’s 11:45 – I never kid after 10 pm on a weeknight. ”

Trivia: Rosanna is the fourth Arquette sibling to be involved in Medium. Richmond appeared in the season two episode “A Changed Man” while David directed “1-900-Lucky” and “Do You Hear What I Hear”.

Best Line: Joe: "What are kids for if not to be used as excuses to get out of things that you don’t wanna do?"